Laughter's The Best Medicine
by dancingloki
Summary: Sam and Steve tracked Bucky down, but the road to recovery isn't an easy one. In the end, a carefree comment from Darcy is what makes all the difference.


All told, it took Steve and Sam barely six weeks to hunt Bucky down.

It wasn't really like he was _hiding_, though. The skill set Hydra had programmed him with would have let him vanish off the face of the earth; he wasn't called a ghost story for nothing. But they found him sitting in the corner booth of an old diner—one he and Steve had used to eat lunch at together, two or three times a week, before the war started and it all went to hell.

The décor was a little different. The diner'd changed hands over the eighty-odd years that had gone by, and as things aged and were replaced it turned into more pseudo-thirties "vintage" than actual period decorations. But it was still close enough to Steve's memories to be familiar.

He'd told Sam to hang back, then slid into the bench across from Bucky. Bucky's fists had tightened, but he didn't fight and he didn't run, just sat there motionless as Steve looked him over. His dirty hair was pulled back and held in place by a torn-up bill cap; he was wrapped in a dirty, torn-up coat that looked like it had been salvaged from a dumpster somewhere. The glance Steve had gotten of his blue jeans showed them barely distinguishable under the coating of filth.

Bucky'd broken the silence first, his voice hoarse and low. "I went to—to that museum." His eyes had stayed fixed on his hands, which clenched and unclenched as he spoke.

"The Smithsonian?"

Bucky had nodded. "Where they—had…those displays. And—the pictures. Of you. And—me."

Steve had listened patiently through Bucky's broken speech, nodding encouragement.

"And—of…of us. You and me."

Steve had waited a little, and when Bucky fell silent, he said quietly, "Your name is Bucky, James Buch—"

"I know my name!" Bucky had hissed at him suddenly, rapid-fire, his eyes fixing on Steve's face with that clear anger, that vicious, cold look Steve had never, _never_ seen there before Hydra had taken him. Then it had gone, as suddenly as it had come, as his face had reset into the sullen, impassive stare at his clenched hands.

There'd been another long silence. Steve didn't interrupt this one.

After another long pause had stretched out, he'd whispered, "Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. I…I was…I was a Sergeant, I…" His eyes had turned up to Steve again, but this time helpless, frightened, lost. "I knew you. On that bridge, I…I knew you, I…I _know_ you."

He'd swallowed hard as he searched Steve's face with desperate eyes. "Don't I?"

…

Bucky was skinnier than Steve remembered. Over the month and a half since the fight on the helicarrier, all that muscle had just melted away; whatever Bucky had been eating in the interval, it couldn't have been enough. Steve's heart broke a little when he saw Bucky's ribs, his shoulderblades protruding from his back when he emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a clean towel. He'd had to teach Bucky how to turn on the shower.

It took eight days before he spoke again. He ate whatever Steve put in front of him, mechanically, obeyed instructions to wash, dress, sleep, without questioning. He tolerated Sam's presence in Steve's apartment, sat on the couch where Steve put him while they talked and joked without protest, but any attempts to draw him into the conversation rolled off the wall of silence.

On the eighth day, Sam came in beaming from ear to ear. He waved a disc at Steve as he toed off his shoes, saying, "Not gonna _believe_ what I found at the library, man. You're gonna love this."

Steve grinned just as wide when Sam tossed him the case and he saw what was inside, and he hurried over to pop the CD into his player. Moments later, the tinny sound of an old radio show intro filled the air.

Bucky, who'd been installed on the couch as per usual, was at first impassive as always; but a few minutes in, his ears had perked up and he was actually _listening_.

He startled both Sam and Steve when he suddenly spoke. "I know this."

"Yeah, Buck," Steve said hopefully, waving at Sam behind his back to act natural. "It's—"

"_Easy Aces_," he said softly. "It was your favorite. You used to come listen to it at my place 'cause you didn't have a radio, and I'd make fun of you."

"That's right," Steve said, and if he was a little choked up, Sam wouldn't tell anyone.

…

The party was Tony's idea, of course. When Steve had gathered the Avengers in an informal meeting to announce that Bucky's rehabilitation had reached the stage where he was ready to start interacting with other people, Tony had _insisted_ on throwing a party to celebrate. ("It's _traditional_, Cap, would have thought you of all people appreciated _tradition_," etc.)

Fortunately, Pepper stepped in and took over the planning before things got too far out of hand. She carved the guest list down to people Steve actually knew, and cancelled the live entertainment (including the dance troupe, which Tony sulked about for days before Pepper relented and let him put together the playlist).

The actual party ended up being…really pretty nice. Minimal decorations, simple, recognizable food, pleasant company. Steve bought Bucky the very nicest button-up plaid shirt he could find for the occasion, and ushered him up to the upper floors of Stark Tower as quickly and carefully as possible, with Sam running interference for them to make sure Bucky didn't feel at all threatened or claustrophobic.

Natasha, bless her, was a rock of stability. As always, the Avengers took their cues from her, and the casualness she treated Bucky with helped considerably. Steve had been worried that she wouldn't be crazy about the idea of making nice with Bucky, since he had shot her that one time. …And then tried to kill her again, more recently. But, apparently, that's not the sort of thing professional assassins hold grudges about.

Unfortunately, her efforts only went so far. Things were _nice_, but…strained. People treated Bucky with this carefully distant civility that set Steve's teeth on edge. He was _better_, couldn't they _see_ that? Treating him like a bomb about to go off was a self-fulfilling prophecy at _best!_ Sam helped too—he'd had a lot of practice dealing with severe PTSD cases, and that easy, comfortable grace oiled a few hinges—but the rest of the team didn't really know him yet, and were almost as awkward around him.

Fury, on the other hand, was definitely a problem. He showed up half an hour late to the party, muttering some half-assed excuse about some crisis or other, then skulked and scowled around the edges for another half-hour before cornering Steve by the food table.

They kept their voices lowered at first, but the argument got heated fairly quickly. The noise of the party died out as everyone there first eavesdropped, then turned to stare openly.

"All I'm saying is, you don't know that. You can't."

A muscle in Steve's jaw was twitching. "I do know it. I don't care what you say, you don't know him like I do."

"And you don't know him as well as you think!" Fury propped his hands on his hips. "You've seen the file, Cap! How many agents has he taken out over the past fifty years? How many hits? You expect us to believe that's just _gone_, overnight, from what? The power of _friendship?_"

"I don't really give a damn what you believe!" Steve shouted, his control snapping. "_Hydra_ was responsible for that, not Bucky. The things they did to him—"

"Would have broken _any_ man." Fury leaned forward, nose to nose with Steve, undaunted. "And I haven't seen a single shred of proof that they haven't broken him, beyond fixing."

Bucky was staring at the ground, clutching a tiny paper cup in his human hand. His face was impassive, completely, terrifyingly blank, but Natasha could see his shoulders trembling.

Steve didn't seem to have noticed, though; he plowed forward, jabbing his finger into Fury's chest. "I don't have to prove a damn thing to you. Besides, you're nothing but a hypocrite—how is this different from Clint bringing Natasha in? She did her share of damage before Clint got to her—I don't mean that the wrong way," he added hastily, throwing a worried, apologetic glance over his shoulder at her.

She shrugged. "You're not wrong." Clint squeezed her arm gently and she half-smiled at him.

Steve turned back to Fury. "And now she's the most valuable asset we have. Saved the whole world _twice_ that I can think of off the top of my head. So how is it different?"

"It's _different_," Fury snarled, "because we didn't just turn her loose on the population and throw her a damn _party_. We had _procedures_ in place to make sure she didn't turn around and _bite_ us."

"And look how well they worked!" Steve threw his hands up. "You had Hydra agents coming out your ears with _no_ idea they were even there, how is your 'procedure' any better than my _word_ that Bucky is who I say he is?"

"Because," Fury spat out, over-enunciating each word, "You haven't given me _any_ reassurance that he's not still dangerous!"

The tremor in Bucky's shoulders had spread to the rest of his torso, liquid sloshing from the cup in his hand as his fist tightened around it. Oblivious, Steve was drawing himself up, his intake of breath audible through his nose, when a cheerful voice cut across the room.

"Of course he's not, he's totally armless!"

You could have heard a pin drop.

The entire room turned en masse to stare at Darcy, who had a plate loaded with hors d'oeuvres in one hand and a glass of what looked like Tony's most expensive wine in the other.

"Get it?" she said, grinning, completely shameless. "Armless. Get it? 'Cause his arm got cut off?"

Steve's nostrils flared. He'd had just about all he could take for one evening before he started breaking things. He was opening his mouth to officially lose his temper in Darcy's direction when he heard a sound behind him that he hadn't heard for almost eighty years.

A loud snort broke the silence following Darcy's revelation. It was followed by another, then a hoarse, stuttering chuckle which broke into a genuine, honest-to-god _laugh_.

In moments, Bucky was bent over double, bracing himself on his knees as he shook with laughter. Darcy smirked and nodded proudly at Jane, who glared daggers at her.

Tears welled up in Steve's eyes. Bucky was _smiling_ when he finally straightened up, that same crooked, carefree grin that Steve remembered, that was pasted all over the old newsreels and photographs at the Smithsonian. He hadn't seen Bucky smile like that since—since before he'd lost him. He couldn't even _remember_ the last time he'd heard him laugh.

Bucky wiped away the remnants of mirth from his eyes with the back of his human hand, turning that bright, beaming grin on Steve. It wavered, though, and faltered, when he saw Steve rooted in place, staring at him transfixed, tears flowing completely unhindered.

He swallowed uncertainly, was about to ask Steve what was wrong, when Steve came crashing across the room and slammed into him like a locomotive, wrapping Bucky in a tight bear hug. Bucky's arms closed reflexively around Steve's back, and in moments he was crying too—another first since his escape from Hydra.

They stood there, wrapped around each other, for a long time. The party atmosphere lightened considerably after that; Darcy's comment—or rather Bucky's reaction to it—had broken some kind of barrier that nobody even wanted to acknowledge had existed. Tony turned the music up loud enough that it made it hard to talk and tried (unsuccessfully) to get Bruce into a dance-off with Thor. Darcy walked around smiling smugly and repeating "armless" to everyone who made eye contact until Jane threatened to taze her. Natasha kicked Fury in the shins when she was _absolutely sure_ no one was looking. Clint saw her do it, and wholeheartedly approved.

All in all, it was a good day.


End file.
